Wolf Untamed

by Paige Tyler

  Hale did a double take. “Are you sure about that?”

  She nodded. “Ken overheard Dave and Hobbs talking about which banks and jewelry stores my ex should hit.”

  Diego got a sinking feeling in his stomach. “Dammit. Hobbs played us like a freaking violin. Why didn’t any of us pick on the fact that he was lying? We’re freaking werewolves.”

  “We must have mistaken his rapid heartbeat for nerves when we talked to him earlier,” Hale said.

  Diego cursed silently. His pack mate was right. Still didn’t make him any less pissed.

  “I’ll call Gage and tell him we need to get a BOLO out on Hobbs,” Trey said.

  “While the cops are out looking for him, we might be able to recover all the stuff he and Dave stole,” Bree said with a grin. “I think I know where they stashed it.”

  * * *

  “This doesn’t really seem like the kind of place a criminal would store millions and millions of dollars’ worth of money, jewelry, art, and collectibles,” Trey said from the front passenger seat as Hale pulled the SWAT SUV into a parking space of the self-storage facility.

  Studying the clean and neat facade of the building, Bree had to agree. But this was the address from Ken’s notes.

  Diego sat in the back seat beside her, clearly still annoyed she’d blackmailed him into letting her come with them. While the moment they’d shared, where they’d confessed how much they loved each other, had been amazing, it didn’t change the fact that Diego hadn’t wanted to bring her along. They’d argued for a few minutes, until she finally pointed out she wouldn’t give him the address for Dave and Hobbs’s cache of stolen goods unless they took her with them. She agreed with him that Brandon should go back to the SWAT compound with Connor and that cute cat that always followed him around, but since she’d figured out Hobbs and her ex had been working together, she deserved to be there when they recovered all the stuff they’d stolen.

  “This is as much my investigation as it is yours,” she’d insisted.

  Diego scowled at her, but she could tell there was no way he could refute that logic. “Okay,” he finally said. “But only because we’re going to a self-storage place and I don’t think it’ll be dangerous.”

  That was good enough for her.

  Since it was within normal business hours, the front gate was open, giving them access to the storage units. If it had been a few hours later, the facility would have been locked up and the only way in would have been to enter with a pass code they didn’t have. Diego told her they then would have had to get a warrant.

  They were halfway down the hallway toward Hobbs’s storage unit when Diego and Trey stiffened and pulled their weapons. Hale quickly followed suit.

  “Hobbs has been here,” Diego muttered, motioning for her to stay behind them. “Recently.”

  The place was a maze of twists and turns, but Diego and his pack mates didn’t slow as they hurried past the endless line of individual storage units, and Bree had no choice but to run so she could keep up.

  The metal roll-up door on the unit Hobbs had rented was open, and when Bree finally caught up and got a peek inside, she was relieved to see the space was filled with what had to be at least twenty sealed cardboard boxes, some discarded pieces of bubble wrap, and a few rolls of packing tape.

  The mere sight of the tape was enough to draw a shudder from her body. Being strapped down to that chair while Diego and Brandon had been struggling with Dave had been the worst moment of her life.

  She, Diego, and Trey walked inside while Hale stayed near the door, half of his attention on the hallway. Holstering his gun, Trey took out a pocketknife and sliced open one of the larger boxes, while Diego did the same with another.

  “This one has some kind of paintings,” Trey said, pulling back several layers of bubble wrap to reveal a piece of color-splashed canvas.

  “Jewels and a vase of some kind over here,” Diego announced as he peeked in the top of an opened box.

  It only took Bree a few seconds to confirm what she already knew. “This is all the stuff stolen from Ken’s clients. If everything is here, you’re easily talking fifty or sixty million dollars’ worth of stuff.”

  When they opened the other boxes, Bree was relieved to see they held the rest of the stuff that had been stolen. She was getting everything back—every single piece—which meant she’d saved her bosses millions. She felt like doing a happy dance.

  “Okay, two questions,” Trey said, looking around at all the boxes they’d opened. “One, if this is all stuff from Ken’s clients, where’s the crap they stole from the jewelry stores and banks? And two, where’s Hobbs? It’s obvious this stuff is packed up and ready to go.”

  “Maybe the stuff from the other jobs is stored in a different unit?” Hale mused, but Diego and Trey motioned him to silence, drawing their weapons and aiming them at the entrance to the unit.

  A few seconds later, Bree heard a rhythmic squeak that could only belong to rolling wheels. She held her breath as Trey moved closer to the entrance, taking up position across from Hale in time for both of them to point their weapons at Hobbs as he walked in, shoving a trolley cart in front of him.

  The reporter froze at the sight of them…and all the open boxes in the storage unit. Bree could practically see the calculations rolling around in the guy’s head. He was almost certainly trying to figure out how good his chances were of turning around and making a run for it.

  He must have decided the odds were against him because his shoulders slumped and he let out a heavy sigh. “How did you find me? I thought you’d be busy with Dave and his mad scheme for the rest of the night. I wouldn’t have called in that anonymous tip to the police about the Federal Reserve if I’d known you’d be done this fast.”

  Bree felt her jaw drop. “I thought you and Dave were working together on these thefts. That’s what Ken Reed’s notes said.”

  Hobbs’s gaze moved to her as Hale approached him, gun holstered and cuffs out. “So that jackass kept notes? I’ll be damned. I knew I should have questioned him more before telling him to take that diner hostage, then kill himself.”

  Wait. What?

  Bree opened her mouth to shout a warning right along with Diego when Hobbs lifted his hand to his mouth in one smooth, practiced motion and bit into his index finger. Before she could get the words out, he brought his hand up, wiping the blood on Hale’s cheek.

  Diego’s pack mate never saw it coming.

  “Kill them,” Hobbs said softly before running out the door.

  Bree felt Diego’s arms around her seconds before he took her to the floor and the shooting started. It took half a second to realize Hale was shooting at them instead of the escaping Hobbs.

  Hobbs could control people like Dave could. How had she missed that?

  In the tight confines of the metal-shrouded space, the shooting sounded loud enough to pierce her eardrums and seemed to last forever. But when it was over, Bree knew it had probably only been a few seconds. That’s when she realized Diego was no longer on top of her, shielding her with his body. The realization terrified her, and she shoved herself up to peek over the cardboard boxes that had gotten flipped over and knocked about.

  Both Trey and Diego were on top of Hale, holding him down as he punched and kicked, growling and snarling, fighting them at the same time he tried to reach for his gun lying a few inches away.

  If Hale got hold of the gun, there was no telling what he’d do.

  Knowing Diego wouldn’t like it, Bree took a deep breath and scrambled to her feet, then moved closer to them—and the gun. She got to it in time to see Diego wiping the last of the blood off Hale’s face with a piece of bubble wrap. Hale stopped resisting immediately, his gaze looking lost and confused, exactly like Brandon had earlier.

  Blood stained Diego’s and Trey’s uniforms as they climbed to their feet, and she immed
iately ran over to them.

  “I’m okay,” Diego said. “Stay with Hale. And for God’s sake, don’t follow us.”

  Before Bree could think to ask what that meant, Diego and Trey raced out of the storage unit, leaving her alone with a barely coherent Hale, worrying about what was going to happen to the man she loved like crazy and wondering how he expected her to follow an order like that.

  * * *

  It was easy for Diego and Trey to follow Hobbs’s trail through the storage facility and out a back door. The second they emerged into the late-day heat, the roar of a fast-approaching vehicle had them jumping back into the building just in time to avoid getting run down. The crash as the white SUV slammed into the building was horrendous, tires squealing and metal tearing. Diego thought Hobbs would back up and try to run them down a second time, but instead he kept going, the engine roaring louder as he raced for the gate that enclosed the back of the storage facility.

  Diego ignored the slight twinge of pain in his hip from the gunshot wound Hale had given him and took off running after the SUV, Trey right behind him. He’d hoped Hobbs would be forced to slow down at the gate, but that didn’t seem to be the reporter’s plan because he kept going full speed. Diego unloaded a full magazine into the area around the left rear tire, while Trey aimed at the right one. Then Hobbs was smashing through the gate, parts of the vehicle flying everywhere as he kept right on going.

  “I hit the tire on my side,” Diego shouted to Trey as they raced after the SUV, which was smoking pretty good as it turned the next corner and disappeared. As he ran, he dropped the spent magazine and reloaded before holstering his weapon. He didn’t want people on the street freaking out when they saw him and Trey with their weapons out.

  “I hit the one on my side, too,” Trey told him, doing the same with his SIG as they sprinted hard along the side of the storage facility. Thankfully, there was no one to see them running faster than they should have been able to. “Then I put a couple in your side because I know you negotiators like to talk more than shoot.”

  “Jackass,” Diego snorted as they made it up to the corner and turned onto Canton. Between the smoke filling the air and people gawking, it was incredibly easy to follow Hobbs from that point.

  Thirty seconds later, they found the white SUV where it had crashed against the side of a building on Chavez Boulevard, both back tires shredded and the smashed-up engine streaming antifreeze everywhere. Hobbs was nowhere in sight. He and Trey picked up Hobbs’s scent quickly, though. They were only a few seconds behind him.

  Diego let out a growl of frustration when the trail took a right on Taylor. “Crap, he’s heading toward the farmers market.”

  “A lot of people are going to be there at this time of day,” Trey said.

  They both started running faster, less concerned about being seen than with having to face a horde of people the reporter might have taken control of.

  “How the hell did Hobbs get the same ability Dave and Bremen had?” Trey asked as they streaked toward the crowd ahead of them at the end of the block. “What, did Dave let him take a bite out of him?”

  “I don’t know,” Diego said. “It doesn’t really matter at this point. We need to figure out a way to take him down without giving him a chance to gain control of us.”

  Trey didn’t have anything to say to that. Diego couldn’t blame him. This was the strangest situation he’d ever dealt with. Even if Hobbs was unarmed, he was still an extreme threat. How did you deal with a man you couldn’t get close to? Short of shooting the guy. And neither of them was going to shoot an unarmed man.

  As they reached the farmers market, the air filled with the scent of fresh produce and the murmur of casual conversation. A few people looked their way curiously, but most didn’t seem interested. Still, it was possible to see the faint ripple through the crowd indicating where someone had passed through in a hurry. It looked like Hobbs had run right down the middle of the main covered concourse, past hundreds of people.

  Diego got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. This was Texas, which meant that probably twenty-five or thirty percent of the people in this crowd were armed. This could go bad so many ways.

  They were halfway through the main section of the market, Hobbs’s scent still strong and clear, when a huge guy in a cowboy hat and jeans suddenly lumbered out of the crowd and threw himself at Trey. People shouted in surprise and quickly backed away. Diego cursed, smelling the blood before he saw a trace of it on the back of the guy’s neck.

  Trey had already sensed the big guy coming and ducked out of his way, but the man didn’t seem to care, turning to lunge at him again. Trey put a hand in the middle of the man’s chest and shoved, flipping him off his feet and slamming him down on his back.

  Diego didn’t have a chance to do more than yell out where he’d seen the blood on the guy as two more men hurtled out of the crowd—one going low, the other high—slamming Diego to the ground. A split second later, a gunshot rang out somewhere in the crowd, then more people jumped on him, punching and kicking.

  He’d never been in a fight like this, with people doing their best to kill him when he felt so restrained he didn’t want to pull his Taser. Things got even crazier when several people from the crowd joined in, tackling two of his attackers and dragging them off him. Diego would have thanked them, but then he realized they had Hobbs’s blood on them, too. With the first attackers out of the way, the two he’d mistaken for Good Samaritans immediately launched themselves at Diego, rage on their faces.

  Trey yanked him out of the pile of violent humanity, shoving the people Hobbs was controlling far enough back to let them catch their breaths.

  “We can’t keep doing this,” Diego yelled, shoving another person back before disarming a second, though he had no idea if the man was there to help him or kill him. “Hobbs could have taken control of dozens of people for all we know.”

  “Go after him,” Trey called back, almost taking a knife through the chest from a woman with blank, glassy eyes. “I’ll slow them down.”

  Diego didn’t pause, turning to take off running through the panicked crowd at full speed. He doubted anyone would pay attention to someone running as fast as he was when the entire place was going mad.

  He didn’t have to go far to find Hobbs’s trail, following it at a dead sprint for two blocks until he smelled the man somewhere directly ahead of him. Apparently, the reporter had been sure his ambush would take care of him and Trey because he wasn’t moving very fast now.

  Hobbs saw him just as Diego caught up to him, and dodged into an Italian café. The place was already in turmoil when Diego pushed through the door, people shouting and scrambling for the exits as the reporter backed away, brandishing a knife he must have grabbed from behind the counter.

  “Everyone out!” Diego shouted, drawing his weapon and moving forward.

  Unfortunately, he wasn’t fast enough to keep Hobbs from getting a hostage, a young girl who couldn’t have been much older than eighteen or nineteen. She struggled with the reporter for a few seconds until he swiped his bloody finger across her neck. The slim girl immediately stopped moving and stared straight ahead. That didn’t keep Hobbs from wrapping an arm around her and dragging her closer, or placing the knife against her throat, careful to make sure it was on the opposite side of where he’d left his own blood.

  “Don’t do anything stupid, Hobbs,” Diego warned, moving into a position that gave him a clear shot at the man’s face, no matter how much he tried to hide behind the girl.

  “Oh, I won’t have to do anything stupid,” Hobbs said in an incredibly casual voice as he traced the edge of the blade against her skin, enough to bring a line of blood to the surface. She didn’t react. “Because you’re going to step aside and let me walk right out that door.”

  “You know I can’t do that,” Diego said, taking a bead on the center of Hobbs’s forehead
. He would have pulled the trigger—he knew he could make the shot—but all it would take was one little twitch as the reporter fell and the knife would slice right through the girl’s neck.

  “Then I’ll have to kill the girl,” Hobbs sneered, moving the knife a little harder, drawing more blood.

  Diego shook his head. “I doubt you’re that dumb. You kill the girl, and I kill you before she hits the floor. I’ll feel horrible about not saving her, but you won’t feel anything at all. Ever again.”

  Before Hobbs could reply, the door behind Diego opened and then Trey was there, looking somewhat worse for wear, his tactical vest slashed in several places and a laceration across his left cheek. But his handgun was dead steady as he moved to the side and took a bead on Hobbs from that direction.

  Tension filled the air as the sound of sirens drifted closer. The area outside this café was about to get very crowded.

  Hobbs must have picked up on that, too. His knuckles whitened where he gripped the knife, dragging the blade a little deeper into the girl’s skin. The way she didn’t squirm or make a sound was creepy and more than a little disconcerting.

  “So, how’d you get Dave to share his ability?” Diego asked. He needed to get Hobbs focused on something other than the impending arrival of the cavalry. “Surely he didn’t simply offer it to you. Dave doesn’t strike me as the sharing kind of guy.”

  Hobbs gave him an appraising look. “Whatever happened to Dave? You kill him?”

  Diego shook his head. “Trying to take down the Federal Reserve was a little too much for him. He’s sleeping it off.”

  Something flickered in Hobbs’s eyes, like he’d heard something he’d been waiting for. “Everything I told you at the newspaper this morning was true,” he said, relaxing a bit while still keeping the girl in front of him. “I merely left out the part about the bargain I made with him. Turns out Dave wasn’t very clever or much of a strategic thinker, and he knew it. In exchange for a little blood and some skin, I became his personal advisor, helping him with his scheme to get rich and reclaim his ex-wife. Almost sad how easy it was to manipulate the guy. He didn’t wonder why I was interested in those client files Reed let him borrow. He actually believed me when I said I was interested in getting into the stock market.”